Walsh to let the system make the decision

I’ve covered Patrick Walsh since he was a Little Leaguer. It’s been 30 years.

Nuts.

I’ve written numerous columns about his passion for life and sports, how it’s helped him overcome a lack of size to achieve massive feats on the field as a record-breaking tailback at De La Salle in the early 1990s and earn Division I scholarships in two sports (football and baseball).

His competitive nature, charm and honesty made him a natural leader on every team he played on and now as a head football coach at Serra for 10 seasons, he’s carried over same traits to impressionable teens.

So, I know his decision today to not opt his Padres up to the highest division of the Central Coast Section playoffs, the Open Division, is deep down eating him up. It’s totally against his grain not compete at the highest level possible. He knows people are thinking he’s ducking West Catholic Athletic League champion Bellarmine, that the Padres can’t win the big one and all the nonsense people write on message boards.

He’s swallowing it all, however. He won’t give in to the hyperbole and machismo challenge that says, “c’mon, if you’re gonna play with the big boys you gotta move up to the Open.”

He won’t do it because Walsh is using his valedictorian brain.

If you want to play at the ultimate highest level in California, you got to make it to the CIF State Bowl Game and represent Northern California against Southern California.

And the only way to do that is to win a section championship.

And the best route to do that is NOT play in the CCS Open Division which is set up to jam the eight best teams into one tournament.

The odds are better not going through the rugged terrain of the Open Division. Serra has one only one CCS title (1990) and is after its first 10-win season.

The Open Division was the deepest level of excellence for CCS teams before the state bowl system arrived. That’s not necessarily the case any more.

“This will give us the best chance to achieve at the very highest level,” he said. “This is the best senior class I’ve ever had and this gives us the best hope of playing four more weeks together. It’s that simple.”

If things go as planned, the Padres will be the top seed in the Division I playoffs (all will be determined tomorrow) and if they come out as champions, at least their name will be thrown into a hat for Bowl consideration.

“Before the state bowl game system, the (CCS) Open Division made 100 percent sense to opt up for,” Walsh said. “But with a deeper layer of excellence to shoot for, I think this is the way to go.”

Even if Serra wins the CCS Division I title, the odds of it being selected are long. The way we see it De La Salle will get Northern California’s Open Division pick and Bellarmine, if it wins CCS Open, would get the Division I spot.

If not Bellarmine, the Sac-Joaquin Section’s D1 field is loaded with either Pleasant Grove-Elk Grove, Lincoln-Stockton or Granite Bay.

No matter what, it appears not opting up and banging helmets with the elite is a direction West Catholic Athletic League teams are headed. We’ve heard all but Bellarmine and Mitty will not be in the Open Division.

Walsh said it really makes more sense for CCS teams to stay put and not opt up for the purposes of a possible state-bowl bid, or next season, NorCal regional final selection time.

Next season the commissions will pick the top two teams per division in each region to play games that will decide a state-bowl bid.

“I’d love someday to see us playing in a state bowl finals along side four CCS brothers – our best teams in each division,” Walsh said.

As it is, that’s not really possible. The very best teams have traditionally been jammed into the Open Division. That likely won’t be the case this season, no matter what the CCS point system says.